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Monday, February 22, 2016

My Review of The Fosters 3.15- Minor Offenses

Callie continues to work with Justina which raises concerns among Stef, Lena, and Rita; Nick asks Jesus for tips about dating Mariana; Jesus confronts Gabe; and Stef and Lena deal with the aftermath of the surgery.

I so want to slap some sense into Callie. I get that she really wants to help foster kids, but doing an ad for a bill without knowing what is going on, calling Rita a scared hypocrite, and completely blowing off Stef and Lena are just bad things. I honestly thought that after last week, she would have realized that something is up with Justina, but she refuses to see it. All she's doing is looking at what Justina wants her to see. I am also finding it very annoying that Callie is just quoting Justina to Rita and accusing Rita of wanting to merely perpetuate the system. She, of all people, should know that Rita is a wonderful person who only has the best interest of her girls at heart. As for Justina's comparison of a charter school to privatized foster care, there are some major flaws. Callie knows that there are issues with the private homes, just witness what happened to with Jack. Also, comparing a school; which parents choose for their own child; to a business where incentives are given based on the number of children based (not how well they are cared for) is comparing apples and oranges. At a private school, the teachers and administrators are answerable to the parents directly. In a privatized foster system, that sort of safeguard doesn't exist. Is the current foster system working as intended? No, it's not. But, generally speaking, privatizing things has not worked out terribly well in most situations. particularly for social services, where the companies are incentivized to cut costs and not to serve people. I just really hope that Callie wakes up and sees what is going on soon.

I also wanted to smack Monte hard. While having suggestions for the student council president was not a wholly bad thing, going with her to help her with her project was way over the line. And I know Monte said the thing about letting Jesus in, but unless my memory is very bad, Lena didn't ask for Monte's help in that case, Monte just did it. Should Lena have accepted it? That is a whole other question. But Monte's habit of casually crossing lines to do what she wants speaks of very poor judgment. While I appreciate her taking an appreciation in the student's future, Lena was absolutely right. Giving that level of help (not just suggestion, but help) to one student and not to others is a horrible idea and smacks of favoritism.

Might as well go for three and smack Jesus too. Telling Nick that Mariana loved burgers and arranging a double date with him and Lexi? Not cool dude. And as for the stunt about egging Nick on regarding the drag racing? Even less cool. I can't say I blame him for going off on Gabe initially. After all, discovering that your biological dad in on the sex offenders list would probably be enough to drive anyone up the wall. And I called it last week. Gabe in on the sex offender list because he was an adult and had sex with his minor girlfriend. This is the sort of thing that really shouldn't get someone on the sex offender list. It was consensual, although she was underage. Seeing as the original purpose of the sex offender list was to make sure people knew if someone dangerous was around their house, having someone who made an innocent mistake like that on the list is just ridiculous.

It was really nice to see Stef and Lena talk about things tonight. I totally get where Lena is coming from. Having your wife lose both of her breasts has got to be hard on you as well and she wants to make sure that Stef isn't hurt. Add to that the fact that she feels guilty about being whole while Stef isn't doesn't make the whole thing any easier. At least they talked about it before it got too bad.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Stef testify for Ty at his sentencing hearing. While it was not the best possible outcome, it was much better than what it could have been. I'm not sure if he did the things he did in the past to help AJ, but if he didn't that makes him different from Callie, who only did things to protect her brother from an abusive situation.

Brandon better be careful. His co-workers ex seems to be a not good guy based on the way he was talking to her. Watching Brandon with her son was just really cute and funny.